A Day With Faran
by Diva Urd
Summary: One-Shot - Princess Danae gets tired of her daily routine and sneaks out of the palace to spend a day with Faran - A normal day in the life of the Child Goddess Aphrael.


Here a One-Shot about a halfway regular day in the life of a princess and Goddess... Little Tie-Over until the next Chaps of "Stranded in Eosia" are up... hope you enjoy!  
  
DISCLAIMER: All characters property of David Eddings, story idea mine. No commercial interests – please no lawsuits! Comprende? ;-)  
  
A DAY WITH FARAN  
  
One bright Sunday morning, her parents were still asleep, Princess Danae of Elenia decided that it had been a while since she had spent a day outside. It was the perfect day: Small white clouds hung in a steel blue sky, the air smelled of grass and daisies (as long as one could ignore the overhanging miasma of the city of Cimmura), and a warm breeze played in her glossy black hair.  
  
As Danae was not only the daughter of Queen Ehlana, but also the newest incarnation of the Styric Child Goddess Aphrael, slipping out of the castle was not difficult at all. Nobody noticed her when she walked over to the stables, intent on visiting her pony – everybody coincidentally looked into a different direction when she walked by.  
  
However, when Aphrael opened the door of the large building in which the horses were kept, a thought crept into her mind. She could visit the little white mare Sparhawk, her current father, had bought for her, any time she liked. The pony was nice enough, but it lacked a sense of adventure...  
  
And suddenly, she knew what she would do. She walked through the large room, down to the very end, where a familiar roan stallion was kept.  
  
"Hello Faran," she called out softly. The huge horse turned his large, ugly head and flicked his ears toward her in greeting when he recognized his visitor.  
  
Aphrael grinned up to him. "Poor boy, Sparhawk doesn't let you out enough..."  
  
Prince Sparhawk had not left the castle in the last few weeks, and that meant Faran was grounded. The princess could fully sympathize with the aged warhorse.  
  
Without any further ado, the girl fully opened the door to Faran's box. A low whinny of anticipation could be heard when she jumped on the stallion's back – she didn't think very highly of reins and saddles, a fact that tended to send her mother into fits. But Mother didn't know – so it didn't matter...  
  
"Let's go and have some fun, Faran," she whispered into the horse's ear, giggling as she did. The roan slowly walked out of the box and along the long hallway in the middle of the room. A few grooms worked on cleaning and shoeing some of the other royal horses – most of them gentle palfreys and sturdy breeding mares, and, of course, did not realize that the princess was leaving the stables with her father's ill-tempered warhorse.  
  
Aphrael shook her head... 'ill-tempered'? Faran? Ridiculous! Sure, he had his own head and tended to show it, but that made him only... headstrong, not ill-tempered. 'At least he shows some intelligence, something few horses actually do.'  
  
She could feel Faran's thoughts as he trotted through the wide stone arc that marked the entrance into the courtyard. The warhorse was getting on in years, but the sense of adventure still didn't elude him. His excitement grew with each step they made through Cimmura, in the general direction of the gate. People passed them, careful to not step into the horse's way, although of course they didn't even realize why they made room for something that didn't seem to be there.  
  
Finally, they had left the confines of the city walls. Aphrael looked back at the City Guards with an impish smile and dropped the spell she had sung under her breath.  
  
Shocked cries arose, when the half-drunk Guards saw the princess galloping off on her father's horse, without saddle or reins, but with amused laughter filling the air as they vanished behind a hill top.  
  
***  
  
Out of sight, the princess shimmered back into her favorite form – that of 'Flute', the child which had become her image in the minds of her worshippers. As the rack of shepherd's pipes appeared in her hands, a grin appeared on her face. She lifted up her legs, until they were resting on Faran's broad back with the rest of her frail-looking body. Then she turned around, until her back was propped up against the horse's strong neck.  
  
"That's better," she smiled, "and now run, Faran – that is what you wanted, isn't it, old friend?"  
  
That was all the encouragement the huge Roan needed – he broke into a gallop, the hilly countryside flashing by before their eyes. Aphrael had not asked him to go into a particular direction, as she had no personal preference. All she wanted was to be in unity with Nature again, away from the confines of her home. Faran felt the same way, so he just ran into the direction his nose pointed him, the Goddess lying on his back and her beautiful song soaring up into the blue sky.  
  
An undeterminable amount of time later, Faran cantered along a road, Aphrael thought she had heard a sound that did not come from them. Curious as she was, she told the horse to stop, and listened harder. There it was again! A small, desperate voice, from the ground to the side of the road.  
  
The Child Goddess effortlessly slid off the horse's back and walked over to the source of the noise. She found a grey squirrel, shivering in pain, lying in a patch of clovers. Its right front leg was nearly ripped off at the shoulder.  
  
Aphrael didn't think long; the squirrel would die if she didn't help her. While she tended to her wounds with a softly hummed spell, she probed the frightened creature's mind.  
  
A trap... many men... arrows. She clenched her teeth. Somebody had caught the poor thing and used it for target practice!  
  
"Now listen, little one," she said to the by now healed little rodent, "we're gonna teach those people a lesson. I have nothing against them doing target practice – but they will learn not to use a living creature as a target anymore!"  
  
Then she leaned down and whispered something into the squirrels bushy ear. Certainly, squirrels didn't really belong to the brighter member of the animal kingdom, but if you talked to them clearly and repeated your idea multiple times, they would be able to remember it. The squirrel ran off for the trees immediately after she had finished – it had a job to get done before it forgot its assignment again...  
  
***  
  
Mergon the Highwayman – that was what his band of robbers called him. They specialized in taking money from the rich (passing merchants and the occasional nobleman) and giving it to the poor (themselves). Since Platime, the Master of Thieves in ugly Cimmura, was on speaking terms with the Royalty, Mergon had turned his back on 'Organized Crime' as such; after all, what good did robbery do when they were only supposed to rob certain people? And what if Her Blondness Ehlana suddenly decided that the crimes of Platime's people weren't bearable anymore and managed to stop them alltogether?  
  
No, Mergon valued his freedom. He spent his days and nights out in fresh air, changed roads every time after they had robbed somebody as to not get caught (for the biggest mistake a Highwayman could make was to stay too long in one place) and, by now, had achieved moderate wealth. Not long anymore, and him and his people could settle down, take a busty bar wench for a wife, and spend the rest of their days carousing to their heart's content.  
  
He grinned when his watcher came cantering into their current hideout. "Somebody's comin', boss – wee girl on a large horse."  
  
Well, even if the girl had no money – they could still take the horse and sell her to a well-paying childless noble. Mergon wasn't particularly opposed to slavery, and in this case, he told himself, it wasn't even that – after all, the child would be cared for by desperate people who had no opportunity to have children of their own. To hell with the original parents – they could produce some new spawn anytime!  
  
When the clopping of hooves on the stamped ground started to resound in his ears, he nodded to his men, all business now. They would catch the brat and her horse, make sure they changed their hideout after they had gotten rid of them both, and have their evening meal early today.  
  
The clopping came closer and closer. Mergon took a hold of his bow (although he doubted that he would need it) and peered over to the road from behind a large boulder that concealed his presence. The trees behind him made a slight rushing sound, caused by the breeze. Oh, the anticipation... They all loved their job, even if they did not routinely end up with a lot of money.  
  
Finally, the horse they had heard came into view; a mighty roan stallion, shaggy, not particularly good-looking and definitely old, carrying on his back a small girl, apparently Styric, and about seven years old.  
  
Mergon put the bow aside and saw out of the corner of his eyes that his companions were doing the same. No way this child could oppose them!  
  
He got up from behind the hill and stepped into the road. "Well met, child," he began, a sneer on his face. "Me and my friends just wondered how attached you are to your horse – and your parents..."  
  
The reaction of the girl surprised him. Instead of trying to flee, of pleading or maybe just inarticulate crying... the girl smiled at him. And she lifted her shepherd's pipes, which she held in her hands, to her mouth. An oddly mocking melody sounded, baffling him...  
  
And suddenly, something hard bounced off his unprotected head. Mergon slowly turned and saw a large walnut lying on the ground next to his right foot. The incident did not remain isolated – suddenly, a flood of nuts, parts of tree bark and even the occasional stone pelted the robbers. Most of them seemed to be coming out of the surrounding trees, but some were also dropped from overhead by mid-sized to large birds. And in the middle of all this turmoil, the girl sat on her horse, without saying anything, without so much as even the tiniest nut hitting her or the horse. Her smile, however, broadened as she watched the Highwaymen running to their horses, frantically trying to leave this accursed place.  
  
***  
  
Half an hour before dusk, word had gotten out of the palace that the princess was nowhere to be found and the Queen totally frantic because of it, Prince Sparhawk's horse appeared in front of the Pandion chapter house close to Cimmura. On his back, sleeping, the Knights found Princess Danae, totally unharmed with a happy smile on her features. When they planned to return her and the horse to the castle, the girl woke up and insisted on a knight apprentice named Talen to return her to her worried parents.  
  
***  
  
It didn't take long to convince her father to smooth things out with Mother. He knew her secret, after all. And Faran had enjoyed himself a lot, so much in fact, that he didn't even try to bite his groom upon their return.  
  
Danae smiled, as she crawled into her bed, Mmrr the cat already sleeping on one side of the pillow. It had been a good day – nothing out of the ordinary, but good nevertheless. Maybe she should spend some more days with Faran...  
  
At that point in her thoughts, she drifted off to sleep. 


End file.
